The Hammer of Eden (27 page)

The flashguns popped, the tapes whirred, and the reporters scribbled notes. Priest tried not to let his anger show on his face. The bastards were refusing to take him seriously—still!

“This is also the opinion of the state seismologist, who I believe is available for interview in Sacramento this morning.”

What do I have to do to convince you? I threatened an earthquake, then I made it happen, and still you won’t believe I did it! Must I kill people before you’ll listen?

Kincaid went on: “Nevertheless, a terrorist threat has been made, and the Bureau intends to catch the people who made it. Our investigation is headed by Special Agent Marvin Hayes. Over to you, Marvin.”

Hayes stood up. He was more nervous than Kincaid, Priest saw at once. He read mechanically from a prepared statement. “FBI agents have this morning questioned all five paid employees of the Green California Campaign at their homes. The employees are voluntarily cooperating with us.”

Priest was pleased. He had laid a false trail, and the feds were following it.

Hayes went on: “Agents also visited the headquarters of the campaign, here in San Francisco, and examined documents and computer records.”

They would be combing the organization’s mailing list for clues, Priest guessed.

There was more, but it was repetitive. The assembled journalists asked questions that added detail and color but did not change the
basic story. Priest’s tension grew again as he sat waiting impatiently for a chance to leave inconspicuously. He was pleased that the FBI investigation was so far off course—they had not yet come upon his
second
false trail—but he felt angry that they still refused to believe in his threat.

At last Kincaid drew the session to a close and the journalists began to get to their feet and pack up their gear.

Priest and Flower made for the door, but they were stopped by the woman with the clipboard, who smiled brightly and said: “I don’t think you two signed in, did you?” She handed Priest a book and a pen. “Just put your names and the organization you represent.”

Priest froze with fear.
I can’t, I can’t!

Don’t panic. Relax
.

Ley, tor, pur-doy-cor …

“Sir? Would you please sign?”

“Sure.” Priest took the book and the pen. Then he handed it to Flower. “I think Florence should sign for us—she’s the journalist,” he said, reminding her of her false name. It occurred to him that she might have forgotten the school she was supposed to attend. “Put your name, and ‘Eisenhower Junior High.’ ”

Flower did not flinch. She wrote in the book and handed it back to the woman.

Now, for Christ’s sake, can we go?

“You, too, sir, please,” said the woman, and she gave Priest the book.

He took it reluctantly. Now what? If he just scrawled a squiggle, she might ask him to print his name clearly: that had happened to him before. But maybe he could just refuse and walk out. She was only a secretary.

As he hesitated, he heard the voice of Kincaid. “I hope that was interesting for you, Florence.”

Kincaid is an agent—it’s his job to be suspicious
.

“Yes, sir, it was,” Flower said politely.

Priest began to sweat under his shirt.

He drew a scrawl where he was supposed to write his name. Then he closed the book before handing it back to the woman.

Kincaid said to Flower: “Will you remember to send me a copy of your class newspaper when it’s printed?”

“Yes, of course.”

Let’s go, let’s go!

The woman opened the book and said: “Oh, sir, pardon me, would you mind printing your name here? I’m afraid your signature isn’t really clear.”

What am I going to do?

“You’ll need an address,” Kincaid said to Flower, and he took a business card from the breast pocket of his suit coat. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

Priest remembered that Peter Shoebury carried business cards.
That’s the answer—thank God!
He opened the wallet and gave one to the woman. “My handwriting is terrible—use this,” he said. “We have to run.” He shook Kincaid’s hand. “You’ve been wonderful. I’ll make sure Florence remembers to send you the clipping.”

They left the room.

They crossed the lobby and waited for the elevator. Priest imagined Kincaid coming after him, gun drawn, saying, “What kind of attorney can’t write his own goddamn name, asshole?” But the elevator came and they rode down and walked out of the building into the fresh air.

Flower said: “I gotta have the craziest dad in the world.”

Priest smiled at her. “That’s the truth.”

“Why did we have false names?”

“Well, I never like the pigs to get my real name,” he said. She would accept that, he thought. She knew how her parents felt about cops.

But she said: “Well, I’m mad at you about it.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I’ll never forgive you for calling me Florence,” she said.

Priest stared at her for a moment, then they both burst out laughing.

“Come on, kid,” Priest said fondly. “Let’s go home.”

10

J
udy dreamed she walked along the seashore with Michael Quercus, and his bare feet left neat, shapely prints in the wet sand.

On Saturday morning she helped out at a literacy class for young offenders. They respected her because she carried a gun. She sat in a church hall beside a seventeen-year-old hoodlum, helping him practice writing the date, hoping that somehow this would make it less likely that in ten years’ time she would have to arrest him.

In the afternoon she drove the short distance from Bo’s house to Gala Foods on Geary Boulevard and shopped.

The familiar Saturday routines failed to soothe her. She was furious with Brian Kincaid for taking her off the Hammer of Eden case, but there was nothing she could do about it, so she stomped up and down the aisles and tried to turn her mind to Chewy Chips Ahoy, Rice-A-Roni, and Zee “Decor Collection” kitchen towel printed with yellow patterns. In the breakfast cereal aisle she thought of Michael’s son, Dusty, and she bought a box of Cap’n Crunch.

But her thoughts kept returning to the case.
Is there really someone out there who can make earthquakes happen? Or am I nuts?

Back at home, Bo helped her unload the groceries and asked her about the investigation. “I hear Marvin Hayes raided the Green California Campaign.”

“It can’t have done him much good,” she said. “They’re all clean.
Raja interviewed them on Tuesday. Two men and three women, all over fifty. No criminal records—not a speeding ticket between them—and no association with any suspicious persons. If they’re terrorists, I’m Kojak.”

“TV news says he’s examining their records.”

“Right. That’s a list of everyone who ever wrote asking them for information, including Jane Fonda. There are eighteen thousand names and addresses. Now Marvin’s team has to run each name through the FBI computer to see who’s worth interviewing. It could take a month.”

The doorbell rang. Judy opened the door to Simon Sparrow. She was surprised but pleased. “Hey, Simon, come on in!”

He was wearing black cycling shorts and a muscle T-shirt with Nike trainers and wraparound sunglasses. However, he had not come by bicycle: his emerald green Honda Del Sol was parked at the curb with the roof down. Judy wondered what her mother would have thought of Simon. “Nice boy,” she might have said. “Not very manly, though.”

Bo shook hands with Simon, then gave Judy a clandestine look that said
Who the hell is this fruit?
Judy shocked him by saying: “Simon is one of the FBI’s top linguistic analysts.”

Somewhat bemused, Bo said: “Well, Simon, I’m sure glad to meet you.”

Simon was carrying a cassette tape and a manila envelope. Holding them up, he said: “I brought you my report on the Hammer of Eden tape.”

“I’m off the case,” Judy said.

“I know, but I thought you’d still be interested. The voices on the tape don’t match any in our acoustic files, unfortunately.”

“No names, then.”

“No, but lots of other interesting stuff.”

Judy’s interest was piqued. “You said ‘voices.’ I only heard one.”

“No, there are two.” Simon looked around and saw Bo’s radio-cassette on the kitchen counter. It was normally used to play
The Greatest Hits of the Everly Brothers
. He slipped his cassette into the player. “Let me talk you through the tape.”

“I’d love you to, but it’s Marvin Hayes’s case now.”

“I’d like your opinion anyway.”

Judy shook her head stubbornly. “You should talk to Marvin first.”

“I know what you’re saying. But Marvin is a fucking idiot. Do you know how long it is since he put a bad guy in jail?”

“Simon, if you’re trying to get me to work on this case behind Kincaid’s back, forget it!”

“Hear me out, okay? It can’t do any harm.” Simon turned up the volume control and started the tape.

Judy sighed. She was desperately keen to know what Simon had found out about the Hammer of Eden. But if Kincaid learned that Simon had talked to her before Marvin, there would be hell to pay.

The voice of the woman said: “This is the Hammer of Eden with a message for Governor Mike Robson.”

Simon stopped the tape and looked at Bo. “What did you visualize when you first heard that?”

Bo grinned. “I pictured a large woman, about fifty, with a big smile. Kind of sexy. I remember I thought I’d like to”—he glanced at Judy and finished—“meet her.”

Simon nodded. “Your instincts are reliable. Untrained people can tell a lot about a speaker just by hearing them. You almost always know if you’re listening to a woman or a man, of course. But you can also tell how old they are, and you can generally estimate their height and build pretty accurately. Sometimes you can even guess at their state of health.”

“You’re right,” Judy said. She was intrigued despite herself. “Whenever I hear a voice on the phone, I picture the person, even if I’m listening to a taped announcement.”

“It’s because the sound of the voice comes from the body. Pitch, loudness, resonance, huskiness, all vocal characteristics have physical causes. Tall people have a longer vocal tract, old people have stiff tissues and creaky cartilage, sick people have inflamed throats.”

“That makes sense,” Judy said. “I just never really thought about it before.”

“My computer picks up the same cues as people do, and is more accurate.” Simon took a typed report out of the envelope he had been carrying. “This woman is between forty-seven and fifty-two. She’s tall, within an inch of six feet. She’s overweight, but not obese: probably just kind of generously built. She’s a drinker and a smoker, but healthy despite that.”

Judy felt anxious but excited. Although she wished she had not let Simon get started, it was fascinating to learn something about the mystery woman behind the voice.

Simon looked at Bo. “And you’re right about the big smile. She has a large mouth cavity, and her speech is underlabialized—she doesn’t purse her lips.”

“I like this woman,” Bo said. “Does the computer say if she’s good in bed?”

Simon smiled. “The reason you think she’s sexy is that her voice has a whispery quality. This can be a sign of sexual arousal. But when it’s a permanent feature, it doesn’t necessarily indicate sexiness.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Bo said. “Sexy women have sexy voices.”

“So do heavy smokers.”

“Okay, that’s true.”

Simon wound the tape back to the beginning. “Now listen to her accent.”

Judy protested. “Simon, I don’t think we should—”

“Just listen. Please!”

“Okay, okay.”

This time he played the first two sentences. “This is the Hammer of Eden with a message for Governor Mike Robson. Shit, I didn’t expect to be talking to a tape recorder.”

He stopped the tape. “It’s a Northern California accent, of course. But did you notice anything else?”

Bo said: “She’s middle class.”

Judy frowned. “She sounded upper class to me.”

“You’re both right,” Simon said. “Her accent changes between the first sentence and the second.”

“Is that unusual?” said Judy.

“No. Most of us get our basic accent from the social group we grew up with, then modify it later in life. Usually, people try to upgrade: blue-collar people try to make themselves sound more affluent, and the nouveau riche try to talk like old money. Occasionally it goes the other way: a politician from a patrician family might make his accent more down-home, to seem like a man of the people, yuh know what I’m sayin’?”

Judy smiled. “You betcher ass.”

“The learned accent is used in formal situations,” Simon said as he rewound the tape. “It comes into play when the speaker is poised. But we revert to our childhood speech patterns when we’re under stress. Okay so far?”

Bo said: “Sure.”

“This woman has downgraded her speech. She makes herself sound more blue-collar than she really is.”

Judy was fascinated. “You think she’s a kind of Patty Hearst figure?”

“In that area, yes. She begins with a rehearsed formal sentence, spoken in her average-person voice. Now, in American speech, the more high class you are, the more you pronounce the letter ‘r.’ With that in mind, listen to the way she says the word ‘governor’ now.”

Judy was going to stop him, but she was too interested. The woman on the tape said: “This is the Hammer of Eden with a message for Governor Mike Robson.”

“Hear the way she says ‘Guvnuh Mike’? This is street talk. But listen to the next bit. The voice mail announcement has put her off guard, and she speaks naturally.”

“Shit, I didn’t expect to be talking to a tape recorder.”

“Although she says ‘shit,’ she pronounces the word ‘recorder’ very correctly. A blue-collar type would say ‘recawduh,’ pronouncing only the first r. The average college graduate says ‘recorduh,’ pronouncing the second r distinctly. Only very superior people say ‘recorder’ the way she does, carefully pronouncing all three r’s.”

Bo said: “Who’d have thought you could find out so much from two sentences?”